During the war, Amiot's factories in Colombes (located close to Paris) manufactured hundreds of Ju.52/3m on behalf of the Luftwaffe. After the war, in order to re-equip the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) and, to make it affordable, the French government opted to take advantage of the available stocks and the acquired skills to relaunch aircraft production. Therefore, a total of approximately 400 Amiot AAC.1 Toucan (AAC stands for Ateliers Aéronautiques de Colombes) were manufactured between late 1944 and 1947/1948 and receiving serial numbers from number 001 onwards.
Compared to its original German counterpart, the Toucan never featured any defensive armament, the landing gear's reinforcement was never present and further minor changes were made also.
The main users of the Ju.52/3m (the original German one, not the Toucan) in France were both the Armée de l'Air and the Aéronautique Navale as they employed captured German machines or even bought from other Allied countries. These machines were also named as Toucan, however, in order to distinguish an original German from a Toucan, an extra digit was added to the serial number (ex. 1001 stood for the first original German one). This was done arbitrarily, without taking into consideration the original German serial number.
The main user of the Toucan was the Armée de l'Air, with at least 216 machines in active, flying with different units.
In fact, the Toucan flew with every transport unit located in mainland France. One unit, Groupe de Transport (GT) III/15 'Maine', was equipped both with the Toucan and the Douglas C-47. Based at Bourget airport, in Paris, this unit took part, together with other C-47 equipped transport units like, GT II/15 'Anjou' or GT I/15 'Touraine' in the repatriation of French prisoners and deportees in Germany.
The GT IV/15 'Poitou' was equipped with the Toucan in 1946. The following year twenty of them were deployed in Madagascar to counter the rebels present there. Here, some Toucans acted as makeshift bombers delivering a payload of one ton.
The Toucan took part too in the first years of the First Indochina War, specially with the GM III/64 'Tonkin', GT I/64 'Béarn' and GT II/52 'Franche-Compté'. The GSRA (Groupes sahariens de reconnaissance et d'Appui - Saharian Support and Reconnaissance Groups) 76 and 78 also employed the Toucan during the Algerian War.
The Toucan was also present in other colonial units present at the French Equatorial Africa like the ESRA 77, present at Bangui (nowadays Central African Republic) as well as with other units like ELA 56 'Vaucuse' or EOM 82.
The Aéronautique Navale (Naval Air Arm) had around 51 Toucans in service with the last one being retired in 1962. They notably served with the 5S, 31S (based at Orly, in Paris) and 56S, among others.
There were many French civilian operators of the Toucan:
- Air France: The French national airway operated the type starting from late 1944 in internal aerial routes and then, after the war, in international and colonial routes. They were retired by 1953.
- Aero Cargo: It seems that this airline had at least one Toucan in inventory.
- Air Ocean: Flew a single Toucan for a brief period of time. It crashed in Morocco in October 1946.
- CTA Languedoc Roussillon: This company has the sad record of having suffered the most deadly Ju.52/3m civilian accident with 23 out of 27 casualties in a crash at Saint-Léger-la-Montagne.
- Société Auxiliare de Navigation Aérienne used the Toucan together with demilitarized Handley-Page Halifax bombers.
Many agencies of the French Government also employed the Toucan.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Junkers_Ju_52_operators
2. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_AAC.1_Toucan (translated)
3. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France (translated)
4. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Junkers_Ju_52
5. https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2020/04/11/aac-1-toucan-frances-post-wwii-ju-52/
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